Mercantilism
Read this article about the many components of mercantilism. Since mercantilism was less a school of thought than a collection of policies, this piece does an excellent job explaining the underlying economic thinking of the time and how it created those policies.
Policies
Domestic Policy
Mercantilist domestic policy was more fragmented than its trade policy. Governments provided capital to new industries, exempted new industries from the rules imposed by guilds, granted titles and pensions to successful producers, and established monopolies over local and colonial markets. However, while Adam Smith portrayed mercantilism as supportive of strict controls over the economy, many mercantilists disagreed.
The period was one of letters patent (a type of legal instrument in the form of an open letter issued by a monarch or government, granting an office, right, monopoly, title, or status to a person or to some entity such as a corporation) and government-imposed monopolies; some mercantilists supported these, but others acknowledged the corruption and inefficiency of such systems. Many mercantilists also realized that the inevitable result of quotas and price ceilings yielded black markets.
One notion mercantilists widely agreed upon was the need for economic oppression of the working population; laborers and farmers were to live at the "margins of subsistence". The goal was to maximize production, with no concern for consumption. Extra money, free time, or education for the "lower classes" was seen to inevitably lead to vice and laziness, and would result in harm to the economy.